#Straight out of compton crack

The veteran rap stars have been on and off the set throughout the production.Įarlier this year Knight, then 49, tried to drive onto a Compton set where a commercial for the film was being shot. Dre watched the monitors closely, weighing in on details (hubcaps, ball caps) to “get it right.” Other members of the old group also stopped by, such as DJ Yella and MC Ren. None of us have a degree in anything, but we learned a lot from our environment and they’re a testament to following your vision.”īack on the set in Leimert Park, Ice Cube and Dr. For some of us, it inspired us to go out and do our thing. “Some people say gangsta rap has this bad kind of effect on people, but N.W.A clawed their way out of a negative situation,” said Gray, who has worked on videos and films with various N.W.A members over the years. For better or worse, the sub-genre grew to influence everything in hip-hop that came after it. Eventually they’d popularize a style that would go on to be called gangsta rap. Known as reality rap in the days before iPods and file sharing, N.W.A’s raw style on songs like “F- tha Police” and “Gangsta, Gangsta” stood out against the more polished party rap coming from the East Coast.

#Straight out of compton crack

Though the crack cocaine epidemic they rapped about was a nationwide scourge, the other elements that influenced their sound - drive-bys shootings, Crips and Bloods, a militarized police force with battering rams (tank-like vehicles the LAPD used to tear down suspected crack dens) - were strictly L.A. N.W.A’s music emerged before the riots and the videotaped beating of Rodney King by police, providing a snapshot of an L.A. Now to see it on the big screen - it’s just a natural progression.” You experience it as opposed to just listening. “If you listen to their music closely, a lot of what they wrote was really visual,” says Gray, 46, who also grew up in South L.A. Eric Wright) in 1995 from complications due to AIDS. The story follows N.W.A from its scrappy beginnings in the mid-'80s to its unlikely success to the death of core member Eazy-E (a.k.a. Gary Gray (“Friday,” “The Negotiator”), the Universal Pictures release chronicles the journey of the five young men as they changed the face of rap - and pop culture - on the power of one very raw, very bold album.

Audiences will soon relive the beginnings of gangsta rap as well when the highly anticipated and likely controversial film hits theaters Aug.